Do not take this is me being rude, try to take it as one gamer to another gamer giving friendly advice. Don't be a jack-ass.

No one in this entire thread (especially myself) have stated that want that raiding "hamster wheel". To be frank, that is the reason why we (those of use who do enjoy raiding) are looking forward to this game in the first place. None of us that enjoy raiding want to have to deal with the damn loot-grind. Those of us waiting for this game have had enough of it. We just like RAIDING though. We all like getting with a group of people and forming a plan and then seeing if it works. We like taking what people are good at and involving them into our strategies. The thing is, those of us who enjoy raiding are afraid that this will not be possible in this game.

We are not afraid really of "raids" being instanced with only a certain amount of people involved (think 15-25 peeps), we are worried that the major events around the world will just be a Dodge and Spank; something that every John/Jane Doe can just run up to and take down without some sort of strategy or organization.

Why does it matter if anyone can complete it? That is an elitist attitude. And reading dungeon journal and watching videos on the fight is hardly strategizing. If you actually learn bosses yourself then nice work.

Do not take this is me being rude, try to take it as one gamer to another gamer giving friendly advice. Don't be a jack-ass.

We all like getting with a group of people and forming a plan and then seeing if it works. We like taking what people are good at and involving them into our strategies.

i apologise if i sounded as rude.
i have a feeling the devs want gw2 to be an "explore me" game for casuals and a competitive pvp e-sport for hardcore players. so i guess players that want "strategy and teamwork" will be catered for in competitive pvp. the devs themselves are competitive pvpers and want to develop the league/tournament side of the game.

The devs have saidI do suspect they will have all of the elder dragon encounters in personal story based dungeons so they can properly use them as a story telling device. Open dynamic events tend to be more for their underlings ie the Shatterer and Tequatl the sunless.

Thanks for posting this Mif. I've never come across that article before.

So thier End-Game bosses will be brought down in thier 5-man dungeons... The only way now I can see myself enjoying this game is if the mechanics of those fights blow my f*cking mind.

So thier End-Game bosses will be brought down in thier 5-man dungeons... The only way now I can see myself enjoying this game is if the mechanics of those fights blow my f*cking mind.

I don't mean that as an insult, but if all you want are large scale instanced bosses, then why not stick with Wow?
There are many things wrong with Wow imo, but it's tiered PVE system isn't one of them as long as you enjoy it.

Why does it matter if anyone can complete it? That is an elitist attitude. And reading dungeon journal and watching videos on the fight is hardly strategizing. If you actually learn bosses yourself then nice work.

Nice catch Arkenaw. Let me rephase if that's all right. It does not bother me that everyone will be able to complete these types of end game bosses, I just don't want people to just being able to run through them without showcasing a little skill. Maybe that is a little elitist; but to me, having skill and actually having to apply it is what makes boss encounters fun. That's how I grew up as a gamer. You play the whole game, and everything that you have aquired/learned throughout should be applied to final outcome. Having things handed to me on a silver platter does not interest me at all.

You want challenging content. But not solo... you want challenging group content. But 5 people isn't enough, you want 10-20+ people with you. Right?

Well I can guarantee there will be challenging content. There will be challenging 5-man content. But there will probably not be appropriately challenging 20+ person content.

Yes, some will say that some dynamic events will be hard, and I'm sure some will be. But you won't be able to control - nor strategize with everyone present - how to down a world boss with 100 people. The really large epic battles will be open to the public. Somehow I don't think this will be for you... what's the point of planning a 30man raid when another random 30 people show up whom you can't effectively lead and communicate with?

If you want tests of skill, communication, teamwork, and video-gaming-performance, then you will either have to do PVP, or you will have to be content with 5-mans.

The market/demand for challenging 25+ man instanced raids are pretty low... even according to numbers published by Blizzard about WOW.

I don't mean that as an insult, but if all you want are large scale instanced bosses, then why not stick with Wow?
There are many things wrong with Wow imo, but it's tiered PVE system isn't one of them as long as you enjoy it.

One reason actually; because everyone's abilities are set in stone. There is no way any wiggle room anymore. If anyone ever played Vanilla, then you should know what I am talking about. In Vanilla it was freaking nuts; it was a nightmare honestly. People could create a spec so obscure and only devoted to one aspect that we would implement them into the boss fights just to see if we could pull it off. You could have any number of groups formed, you spec did not always dictate your role. I mean, c'mon, I was part of a 40man back in Vanilla that downed Rag with all HOLY priests! I'm sorry, but those were the golden days of WoW raiding. Now in WoW if you are a Enh Shammy then all you do is melee dps...nothing else. If you throw a heal you are shunned by your other dps'ers and insulted/berrated by people who are there to actually heal. In Vanilla it was opposited. If you went enh and didn't expect to throw out heals to help out then you felt you were going to get mugged if you stepped outside.

The reason I don't want to go back to WoW anymore is because there is no variety. In GW2, they get rid of the holy trinity; to me that means so much variety in play style that I nearly had a nerd-gasm when I heard about it.

With all polite respect, it seems you are being as little obtuse here, ShamantankFTW. Particularly about nebulous concepts such as "epic feeling" and so on. Things we can't rightly judge or quantify on a game precious few have played in it's beta even. Demos + alphas are all we had to go on.

Perhaps Anet will add a super duper challenging 10 man dungeon at some point. Or create a 5m dungeon epic dragon boss fight so incredible our minds are incapable of handling the awesome. Maybe some DEs will be so hard, so monumental it takes the combined effort of the entire server to drop these bosses ala FF11 or EQ's the Sleeper.

We can't rightly say though.

At best: Guild Wars 2 blows our collective socks off for a one-time fee of $60-70.
At worst: Guild Wars 2 is "meh" for a one-time fee of $60-70.

I can sorta understand this much consternation over a subscription game in which we are bound to the box price, an ongoing fee and heavy time investment. But it's kinda unnecessary with regards to Guild Wars 2 as it does not share the commonalities of design with Warcraft, SW:TOR, Rift, etc.

GW2 is a "pick-up n' play" style MMO without Warcraft-like gimmicks to keep you paying a sub. Can't be any simpler.

Here's the thing that a lot of people have said and are trying to get across. Lets take a step back and define what end-game is:

End-game conceptually is essentially a way to keep players interested and playing the game after the immediate completion of their first long term goal, which in pretty much every online game reaching max level. Now, being as how the WoW model is pretty much the only thing people know about for an mmo (as opposed to pre-WoW games like FFXI) most people only recognize end-game content as being raids. It isn't the fault of the people for this, its the fault of the genre for failing to innovate at all. Raiding is the means to an end, the end itself being how players are entertained after the level cap has been reached. Like many other problems in life, there are many more ways to solve this problem. Enter Guild Wars 2.

In GW2, dynamic events replace quests as the main form of character progression, and a newly founded class system replaces the holy trinity we are used to. Completing dynamic events will reward people with a number of different rewards, including gold, xp and karma. Now dynamic events will scale players down but not up, meaning the only events a player won't be able to do would be ones that are too high of a level for the player to participate in. Returning to any previous area allows for players to still play old dynamic events and still have fun doing them. Because these events all scale with level and number of players participating, they serve as GW2's large scale group content (i.e. raids in any other game). The translation here: dynamic events are raid encounters in any other game. Remove the walls and put the boss in a field and its the same thing. These types of encounters are what players will be doing at level 1, which is where the comment "endgame at level 1" comes from. (I'm not exaggerating; go look up some charr and human starting area videos)

Levels are less meaningful in GW2, because of the immense amount of level scaling that happens in almost all forms of content. You get scaled down for PvE and scaled up for PvP, I forget if dungeons will have level scaling or not. Regardless, the end result is that players are playing the same content at around the same strength, so the content stays fun even at higher levels. Because of this, if you really liked the kind of content any particular zone provided that you had played through, you can go back to it; you don't have to wait for the developer to make a "hard mode" version of the group content you liked. At the end of the day, your reward for reaching level 80 is maxed out character customization and access to the entire world to explore and have fun in. To me though, levels in GW2 look like they will be more in line with a rank from a FPS shooter than a level in an MMO. You'll unlock more traits when you level but thats about it (i think). They don't look like they will hold as much significance, and might serve as just a number to represent time investment. I could be wrong, but thats just how i'm looking at levels right now.

Hopefully I've helped somebody in my post/rant, and have answered a question or two lol

With all polite respect, it seems you are being as little obtuse here, ShamantankFTW. Particularly about nebulous concepts such as "epic feeling" and so on. Things we can't rightly judge or quantify on a game precious few have played in it's beta even. Demos + alphas are all we had to go on.

Perhaps Anet will add a super duper challenging 10 man dungeon at some point. Or create a 5m dungeon epic dragon boss fight so incredible our minds are incapable of handling the awesome. Maybe some DEs will be so hard, so monumental it takes the combined effort of the entire server to drop these bosses ala FF11 or EQ's the Sleeper.

We can't rightly say though.

At best: Guild Wars 2 blows our collective socks off for a one-time fee of $60-70.
At worst: Guild Wars 2 is "meh" for a one-time fee of $60-70.

I can sorta understanding this much consternation over a subscription game in which we are bound to the box price, an ongoing fee and heavy time investment. But it's kinda unnecessary with regards to Guild Wars 2 as it does not share the commonalities of design with Warcraft, SW:TOR, Rift, etc.

GW2 is a "pick-up n' play" style MMO without Warcraft-like gimmicks to keep you paying a sub. Can't be any simpler.

Your absolutely right... I guess I really am being a little exagerated here. I completely understand that we have only seen Alpha/Demos; I guess because of the lack of information was why I was feeling a bit afraid.

I was just really hoping that this game would be the "one" ya know? That one game that some gamer out there finds and feels like it is absolutely perfect; that it fits perfectly with what he was looking for. I guess it's the fact that we hardly have any information at all really. Haha, I guess I should calm down now wait for more information to be released.

Anyway, sorry bout junping off the deep end, and thanks everyone for bearing with me as I went through my "mid-life gaming crises".

I was just really hoping that this game would be the "one" ya know? That one game that some gamer out there finds and feels like it is absolutely perfect; that it fits perfectly with what he was looking for. I guess it's the fact that we hardly have any information at all really. Haha, I guess I should calm down now wait for more information to be released.

Why the search for THE ONE?

You eat more than 1 kind of food, yes? More than 1 kind of drink, yes? You like more than 1 TV show? You have more than 1 song you listen to, yes? You can have a dinner with steak, potatoes, vegetables, a beer, and a small slice of cake. GW can be the steak. Or the vegetables. But it can't be everything.

GW2 is not the 2nd coming of Christ. It's just a video game among a sea of video games. It may be really, really, really good... but it can't be everything to everybody. GW2 is not a first person shooter. GW2 is not a real-time strategy game. GW2 is not a platformer.

There's really no purpose to worrying about this. Especially since the game hasn't even released yet. Wait until the game is out... try it out... and then see if you think it's worth playing. There is no reason to have to make a decision today... ~4 months before the game is even released!

It seems to me that you have been playing traditional mmo's and raids for so long, that you have forgotten how to have fun in any other way. It's like your brain is still stuck on the skinnerbox model, and are unable to jump off. There is something with your way of thinking, that just can't understand that it's possible to jump into a game, and have a blast already from level one. And I don't mean this in a condocending way, I think a lot of people have the same problem with this.

I can see your worries if Anet made a game that's similar to wow, but at the same time just took out raiding. But this is not what they have done. They have designed this game with the philosofy of instant fun and engaging gameplay from the get go. If they succeed in what they are trying to do for the playerbase, then you won't miss raids at all, because you will be waaay too busy having fun all the way.

Anet is not going to make a game that will screw over everyone that loves raiding in all the other mmo's. The only reason they are "taking out the end game", is because the whole game is going to be an end game experience, in the sense that more or less everything you experience from lvl 1, is what you'll see at max level.

They are doing this to minimize the grind, and because they are confidant that they have made a game that is so much fun for the players, that they actually dare do this. They can challenge the old way of designing a game, because they are replacing it with tons of engaging fun all the way. As they said, where traditional mmo's make one quest, Anet has to make three times as many events, because they need to have one new event for a success, and one new event for a failure.

Anet has set the bar very high for themselfs, they know they are taking a real risk here. But they are confidant that they have made a game so engaging and fun from the start, that a lot of people will be playing for a long time. They focus a lot on replayability in every aspect of the game, this is not an mmo that will bore you to death for a long long time. This is a living, breathing everchanging gameworld, that will keep you occupied for years to come.

You eat more than 1 kind of food, yes? More than 1 kind of drink, yes? You like more than 1 TV show? You have more than 1 song you listen to, yes? You can have a dinner with steak, potatoes, vegetables, a beer, and a small slice of cake. GW can be the steak. Or the vegetables. But it can't be everything.

GW2 is not the 2nd coming of Christ. It's just a video game among a sea of video games. It may be really, really, really good... but it can't be everything to everybody. GW2 is not a first person shooter. GW2 is not a real-time strategy game. GW2 is not a platformer.

There's really no purpose to worrying about this. Especially since the game hasn't even released yet. Wait until the game is out... try it out... and then see if you think it's worth playing. There is no reason to have to make a decision today... ~4 months before the game is even released!

You misunderstand me mate. Or rather, you understand what I am saying but are ignorant of how I look at gaming. You see, I can go all through-out my past and point out the games that I had found to be perfect for what I wanted at the time. I remember playing the NES and going back and forth through games that yes, I enjoyed, but none of them kept my attention for longer than a single playthrough. Until Final Fantasy was released. That game blew my mind, like it did everyone elses when it came out. It literally set new ground rules for the RPG genre that are still a staple in it today.

The next game that I came across that I absolutely fell in love with was (believe it or not) Legend of Dragoon. To me that game was mesmerizing. Epic story, great characters (excluding a couple), and an extremely innovative battle system. And then along came Tibia; my first endeavor into the MMO genre. Now that I new that this style of gaming could be made, I was infatuated with finding one that fit perfectly with what I was looking for. And the WoW came along. At the time, it was perfect. It had the online play that I had fallen in love with but it also gave ways to implement others' abilities for epic battle against other players or the one time final fight against thier "end of the world" boss.

Now when I heard about GW2 I thought that I would finally find another game out there that not only reaches my expectations, but delivers to me something that hasn't been done before or at least expands upon something that I found riveting in another game. When I heard about them getting rid of the 'trinity' I was sold. But! When I first heard about the game, I fell into the trap like so many others out there. I thought it would have end game raiding.

Now, that doesn't honestly break the game for me. Having an instanced raid makes no matter; but having PvE boss fights that involve tactics and organization do. The thing is, right now at least, I don't see how they can promote a tactical or strategic fight as an outdoor encounter. Here is to hoping though.

I will still play this game and I will still enjoy it; it just may not be the game that I was hoping it would be. But, like Fencers said above me, we don't know everything that this game has to offer yet. I will give it time and hope for the best.

Now, that doesn't honestly break the game for me. Having an instanced raid makes no matter; but having PvE boss fights that involve tactics and organization do. The thing is, right now at least, I don't see how they can promote a tactical or strategic fight as an outdoor encounter. Here is to hoping though.

I will still play this game and I will still enjoy it; it just may not be the game that I was hoping it would be. But, like Fencers said above me, we don't know everything that this game has to offer yet. I will give it time and hope for the best.

If your definition of fun is restricted to:

1) killing bosses
2) that are instanced
3) with 20-30 people
4) with no random people showing up
5) and that requires and extreme amount of skill, communication, and coordination to defeat

... then this game is probably not gonna meet those needs. The game will have all of the above... but not at the same time. Hopefully, it'll still be able to provide you with fun and challenge. You seem to hope so too, and most of us here think so as well. As long as you're open-minded, and realize that the above 5 strict criteria are not the only ways of having fun, then I think you will grow to love this game. The cost (no sub) and time investment (game starts at level 1) is very low, so it's certainly worth giving a shot.

I'd ramble on some more, but I think at this point you know almost as much about the game as we do :P

I enjoy the new LFR tool Blizzard has implemented. So far I have yet to run into a really really bad group. I find it amazing I can even kill an endgame boss now, because my guild only consists of me, my hubby, and close friends who pop in and out.

But raiding aside, I'll be more for Character Story and hopefully some good RP in GW2. I love D&D, and so this will be a better chance for me to have some fun.

My guild is in the same boat. My girlfriend is the GM, I am the "raid leader" (meaning that I tell people when to que for LFR) and the rest is just RL friends and their cousins. I PuG with other raiding guilds on my server, and every time I have to decline their invite. While I enjoy raiding and I am good enough to raid, I rather do the LFR with my guild and spend an hour or so enjoying their company. I do love progressing, and wiping is sort of fun to me if we are getting closer to killing the boss, but I already decided once I started a guild with my friends and my lover that I choose them over raiding.

You can buy GW2, play it for a month or two and then just drop it again til you feel like logging back in. There is no sub fee so you don't have to play every month. Hell, you can get to like level 70, take a break and come back for the new expansion. Who cares? It is a game. You paid the one time fee for it, and now it is yours to play how much or as little as you'd like.

That's because they have never been able to do anything else as end game content.

Untrue. My first MMO was UO in 1997. There was no raiding in UO. So my first love in the MMO genre was an endgame without raiding. However, I do enjoy raiding in WoW. So your argument is not accurate. Obviously, a raid model is not necessary to have a fun endgame, but to say that people only love raiding because they have never seen another type of endgame is completely false.

It's a shame we even have to have this discussions. It really is. It's caused by this insecure feeling people have when new things are popping out. I can understand that to some point, you see a game that looks good but you are worried if you are going to "fit in" to the new concepts it introduces. But really, the concept is pretty simple and it's strange so many can't grasp it.

First, you people need to understand that GW2 is not competing with WoW, or even any other MMO. I think closest games I can think of are Skyrim and Battlefield 3 (or MW, doesn't matter). Neither of them has end game, yet millions of people are playing them. It is really the same.

I didn't stop playing my BF Bad Company 2 when I've reached max level, actually time spent in BF:BC2 after reaching max was many, many times larger than what it took me to reach it. Why? GAMEPLAY.

Yes, gameplay is enough. When you are having fun with your friends while killing mobs or other players - that's enough to keep you for long, long years.